


Bad Dreams

by orelseatlastsheunderstoodit



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (i think), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Related, Episode: s09e02 The Witch's Familiar, Gen, Spoilers, post-The Witch's Familiar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orelseatlastsheunderstoodit/pseuds/orelseatlastsheunderstoodit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara Oswald has dreams. She doesn't always like them. </p><p>Set post-The Witch's Familiar and involves spoilers (like a fair amount), so if you haven't seen Series 9 Episodes 1 and 2, I'd hold off on reading this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Dreams

  
Time travel was always possible in dreams. Vastra had said that, and the Doctor had said that, on two very different occasions.  
  
Clara didn't like dreaming.  
  
Oh, sure, some dreams were nice--lunch dates with Danny on their bench, family picnics with her mum and dad, that sort of thing. Happy stories. And some times the Doctor wove his way through the stories, doing that spinny kick or subtly showing off his jacket's red lining. He joined the picnics and the Christmas dinners, and he and Danny would scoff at each other in wary affection.  
  
But some times, the dreams changed.  
  
She fell, with Robin Hood's arms tucked around her, with a dead governess' icy embrace, with the time winds plucking and pulling at her, this way, that way, no where and everywhere and everywhen at once.  
  
She ran, from Cyberman and Silurian, from Davros and Daleks. She never knew where she was, in dreams, but she normally knew who she was: Clara Oswald, however splintered.  
  
But this time was different.  
  
\---  
  
_I am Clara Oswald_  
  
she screamed but no one could hear  
  
her voice had been stolen by an evil witch  
  
the crew of skeletons were scratching on the doors  
  
_I am Clara Oswald_  
  
the murderous Mary Poppins liltingly sauntered through the scene, mocking, manipulating. "Indulge yourself. Go on, kill the Dalek," she whispered whispered whispered.  
  
_Kill the Dalek I am not a Dalek_  
  
_yes you are yesyouare yesyouare_  
  
_Kill the Dalek_  
  
don't  
  
please don't  
  
_I am Clara Oswald_  
  
please don't kill me  
  
don't let them eat my brain  
  
she turned up the music  
  
what magic word could break this spell?  
  
_please see me why can't you see me I'm right here_  
  
\---  
  
Clara woke in darkness, her blankets twisted around her legs. She kicked free of them, and they slipped to the floor.  
  
Which bed was this? Where was she? _Where was she?_  
  
Heart pounding, temples aching, she sucked in air and listened. There it was, that familiar hum of the TARDIS. She was on the TARDIS. She was safe.  
  
Well, as safe as she could ever be on the TARDIS. Some times the TARDIS was as safe as crossing the road. But she had a feeling that even the TARDIS had been…stressed.  
  
She sat up and inhaled again, more slowly this time. _Stressed_ was putting it mildly. The TARDIS had been dispersed throughout the room.  
  
Did she sympathize with being splintered apart like that? Hell yes. But she wouldn't admit that to the TARDIS, who still sometimes hissed at her like an angry cat.  
  
Clara shoved her feet into her slippers. No point in trying to sleep now.  
  
Tea and a book, that would do it.  
  
She meandered down the corridors, trying to find the way to her favorite kitchen, the one with the chipped cups and battered pots, the one that looked like everyone who'd ever traveled on the TARDIS had contributed something to. It was down a different corridor than before, but she found it all the same.  
  
Favorite cup, favorite flavor, and now for favorite book in her favorite spot in the library. Thankfully, the library hadn't moved. "Thank you," she whispered, and the hum increased slightly before dying back down. Maybe the TARDIS was being kind. This time.  
  
Her favorite spot--the nook she'd named her Roman Holiday, due to its overabundance of sculptures, paintings, and Polaroids of Roman authors, emperors, and orators--was home to one of the most comfortable couches she'd ever encountered in her life. Not as nice as Danny's couch, but maybe that couch had been softer because Danny had been there, too.  
  
"I thought you might end up here, Clara," the Doctor said. He was in his chair next to the couch--this chair was the spitting image of the one he'd lugged into the control room. Probably wasn't the same chair. Probably.  
  
"Well, I didn't," she said. "I was all settled in for a good night's sleep in my room when I had a hankering for some tea."  
  
"Tea's good for the synapses," he responded, as if this were scientific knowledge she should already know. "Did you bring me a cup?"  
  
"No, didn't know you'd be here."  
  
"Good thing I brought my own, then," he rumbled.  
  
"Yeah, good thing. Brought your own tea, too?"  
  
He smiled, that slight smirk he wore when he thought she was being clever rather than sarcastic. Though the two emotions weren't always that far apart. "As a matter of fact I did." He took a sip from his tea. "Just how I like it."  
  
She set down her cup, laid the book (an Austen, of course, but not one that Jane was famous for) next to it.  
  
"You gonna sit?"  
  
She eyed the couch warily. "It's not going to eat me or anything, right? It's been that kind of day."  
  
"Wrong enemy for people-eating couches. Sit."  
  
She curled onto the cushion closest to him, reached for her tea.  
  
"Do you ever dream, Clara?"  
  
She'd asked him the same question once, for two reasons. One, simple and pure curiosity--did Time Lords dream? Their brains certainly fired off enough that it seemed that they would. Two, possible commiseration--did the Doctor ever dream of his other lives, of his other selves? But all she'd managed was "Do you dream?" and he'd answered with his newfound or rediscovered sentimentality.  
  
Which she didn't begrudge, because it would be hard not to when your long-dead family were suddenly alive again.  
  
"About what?" she asked.  
  
"Human brains are funny," he said. "Well, they're normally funny, seeing as they're human, but they tell humans stories while they sleep. Humans are made of stories."  
  
"Yes, I dream," she said. _But you wouldn't understand about what._  
  
He arched an eyebrow at her, as if he'd somehow heard what she was thinking. "Still, not all stories are true, of course. We lie to each other and we lie to ourselves--"  
  
"Yes, we know all about that, don't we?"  
  
"--but the lies are stories, too. And some stories are not pleasant. Would you agree to that?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Would you prefer the pleasant stories to the not-so-pleasant stories?"  
  
"It depends."  
  
That wasn't a lie, but it wasn't all truth either.  
  
"Your eyes are doing that thing again, Clara, I thought you'd gotten them under control," the Doctor said. "I prefer--"  
  
"I had _nothing_ under control," Clara blurted, the terror of the last day washing over her again. "The planes had stopped and no one could reach you and Missy was _alive_ \--" She took a deep breath and shakily let it out. "And then you were going to die and you didn't even tell me and it was Daleks."  
  
The Doctor didn't say anything, just kept looking at her calmly, inscrutably.  
  
"It was Daleks, Doctor, and she….she….she put me in a Dalek and let it steal my voice. No matter what I said, it came out all wrong." She tried to hold back her tears but they slipped down her face regardless of what she wanted. "No one could hear me, I was all alone like last time and you were right there and you couldn't see me. You couldn't hear me."  
  
"Like last time?" The Doctor leaned forward, fingers steepled under his chin.  
  
"I turned the music up but no one heard and when someone did they didn't see me. I was yelling out who I was and all that came out was that I was a Dalek," Clara said. She tried to blink away the tears. "I'm Clara, I'm Clara, and I'm--"  
  
"You're human." He reached out a hand, cupped her chin, then wiped a tear away from her cheek with one thumb. "Oh, Clara, you make a very bad Dalek."  
  
She swallowed back a sob. "Is that so?"  
  
"Yes, it is," he said, pulling back his hand. "Whatever you said that made the Dalek translator say _I show mercy_ , it meant that you weren't very Dalek-like at all. You're very much not a Dalek. And I did learn something about Daleks today."  
  
"Oh, and what's that?" Clara asked, swiping a sleeve of her nightgown across her wet eyes.  
  
"That I've met two supposedly good Daleks in the universe," he said, "and neither were Daleks. No, not at all. They were both you." He gently took her hand in his. "And I don't want you to change."  
  
\---  
  
The tea was sipped til the pot was empty, and the book remained unread. (There would always be another time to read Jane's book.)  
  
Perhaps the dreams would come again, both pleasant and unpleasant. But Clara had a feeling that somehow she'd meet St. George (whose eyebrows would be quite shocking indeed) and together they'd slay the dragons that haunted her dreams.  
  
That was what they did, wasn't it? Keep the whole world from having bad dreams?


End file.
